Last week The Abbey School was approved as a Cisco Networking Academy.
Cisco Networking Academy is a global IT and cybersecurity education program that aims to empower students with the skills needed for today’s digital economy. Joining this program will give our students access to industry recognised certifications as well as a large number of both self-paced and instructor led courses.
Robert Bradley, Head of Computer Science at the Senior School, explained why the school joined this program.
“The Cisco Networking Academy allows us to support our students in much, much more than just Networking. They provide courses in Python programming, Cybersecurity, Linux and other Operating Systems and the Internet of Things. We can offer these to our students to study in their own time, or as part of their curriculum during lessons.”
“The courses they provide are recognised worldwide, providing students with hands-on experience of real-world applications in an accessible format. They also provide teachers with professional development opportunities to support their own learning in a subject that changes year-on-year.”
Dr Dawn Bellamy, Deputy Head of the Senior School, was delighted by this development.
“Opportunities like this, both within and beyond our curriculum, are exactly the kind of outstanding real-world educational experiences that we provide for our students. Learning with purpose by connecting with such programmes will add an extra layer of motivation and will, no doubt, underpin continued progress and achievement for those who take advantage of this new initiative.”
Some students have already been offered the opportunity to begin studying on some of these courses. The first group selected are non-Computer Science studying Sixth Formers who are looking to improve their coding skills, either out of interest or because they are looking to study subjects such as Engineering at university and want to get a head start on this important skill in engineering today.
Over the next few months many more students will be offered the opportunity to study on more self-paced courses outside of lessons and the teachers will be looking at what topics we can embed in the curriculum for next year.
